Guilt
by annaisadinosaur
Summary: "Some people run from their guilt and shed their conscience until there's no conscious left at all. But I run towards my guilt. I feed off of it; I need it. For me, guilt is one of the few lanterns that still lights my way." Guilt is the last thing Peter has left.


**Guilt**

_"In revenge, as in life, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the end, the guilty always fall. Guilt is a powerful affliction; you can try to turn your back on it, but that's when it sneaks up behind you and eats you alive. Some people struggle to understand their own guilt, unwilling or unable to justify the part they play in it. Others run away from their guilt, shedding their conscience until there's no conscience left at all. But I run towards my guilt. I feed off of it, I need it. For me, guilt is one of the few lanterns that still lights my way."_

**x**_  
_

Peter had always been terrified of the dark.

When he was just a boy, his mother would put him to bed, turn off the light and click the door closed. Peter would cry, sob, wail, _scream_, but his mother never returned. He would crawl from his bed and claw at the floor like an animal, hungry and desperate for the crack of light beneath the door.

And then, after he'd emptied his small body of every last tear, the dark would close in and suffocate him, and Peter would collapse in the oblivion.

**xx**

The castle had been warm, Peter remembered. There was light, candles that floated in the air like ghosts, and there were people, people like _him_. He'd been branded with maroon, sorted into the House of the lion, and the Hat had said he was brave.

Peter belonged, and that feeling alone was warmer than any night he'd ever had.

(And he was brave. How could he forget that?)

_It'll be good for you, Peter… You can't be afraid of the dark forever…_ _You've got to grow some spine… _

(But he _was_ brave. He was.)

**xxx**

The three of them laughed and laughed and _laughed_ till their sides ached.

(Remus buried his nose in his book and pretended as if he didn't see a thing.)

The hook-nosed grease ball was bright red in the face, and that was the last Peter saw of him before he scurried away and into the sanctuary of the castle. But the boy's mortification did not affect Peter, because he was with James and Sirius, and there was no remorse in their vivacious laughter.

It was when the sun had faded in the sky that he first felt it. It was when the dark surrounded him and panted hot breaths down his neck that he was alone, and felt _it_. The guilt. It trickled slowly into his head and then throughout his blood, spreading underneath every inch of his skin.

(He shouldn't have laughed. He shouldn't have taunted him.)

But the dark became unconsciousness, and soon enough the light had returned and carried all of it away.

(Because what did it matter? It'd just been _Snivellus_.)

**xxxx**

It never stopped. It was a vicious cycle, cat chasing rat, rat chasing cat, never succeeding, always hiding, always clawing for the light at the bottom of the door.

(Because soon the thoughts were too loud. _Those_ thoughts. The guilty ones.)

James and Sirius and Remus were brave, so brave, and so was _Peter_, because the Sorting Hat had said so. He'd belonged.

(But they didn't wait for him. They always just let him chase.)

They trusted him, but not because he was brave, no, not ever because he was brave. They trusted him because he wasn't. Because there was no way anyone would ever suspect _him_.

(James and Lily and Sirius had trusted him. He was brave.)

**xxxxx**

_You can't be afraid of the dark forever, Peter… You've got to learn to be brave… The world will never wait for you, Peter…_

That was where he was, in the dark, on the floor, writhing and trembling and screaming.

"_Tell me where they are_."

And he thought of James, who'd been his friend, who'd he'd laughed with till his ribs felt about to burst, and he thought of Lily, who had always been sweet to him, and Harry, who hadn't lived long enough to ever do anything wrong.

(But Peter, _he_ had.)

And so he told him. He fed his secrets to the dark and in turn was given the light.

(He didn't know, at first, that guilt _was_ the light.)

**xxxxxx**

Underneath the city, all was dark, _so_ dark. There was no light, not anywhere, not a glimpse or a flash or a whisper. It was where the dark lived. It was where Peter lived.

(Because James was gone. Lily was gone. Sirius was gone. _Peter_ was gone.)

It had always been in the dark that the guilt found him, fed on his thoughts, devoured the last bits of sanity in his possession. Months passed beyond the dark, and the sun rose and set in a place where Peter could not see it.

And then the guilt had grown so large that it had become physical. _It_ had become the light in the dark. It was the lantern that beckoned him forward and onto his way. His long, scratchy nails raked against the hard, unforgiving ground as he sought the light, and this place was his childhood bedroom, and he sought the paradise beneath.

(Peter had always been afraid of the dark.)

**xxxxxxx**

The guilt was why he hid. He could never be discovered. The guilt was his own, his secret, a light that others could not see. The guilt was why he had stripped himself of humanity and suffocated himself as the animal he was. The _rat_. The traitor. The guilty, rotten traitor.

(But he'd never been brave. They'd known that. They had.)

The guilt was why he was at Hogwarts again, why he rested in the pocket of the Weasley boy, why he pretended to be nothing but a dumb rat.

(But maybe he really _was_ nothing but a dumb rat.)

**xxxxxxxx**

He never gave up. He couldn't have. The guilt whispered to him in his sleep, reminded him of who he was and why he was. The guilt was the reason he was still alive.

The dark would have killed him. He would have vanished into it. But he'd fed the dark, and the dark had granted him light.

(He _had_ to betray them. He would have died otherwise.)

But Sirius and Remus would never understand.

(The guilt was why he ran from them.)

**xxxxxxxxx**

The dark never left Peter. He was always running from it, always feeding it when it grew hungry, always crying and screaming and clawing at the ground.

(His guilt was his life. The dark had taken everything else.)

**xxxxxxxxxx**

But it did not end the way it began.

It did not end with his mother closing the door and trapping him inside his nightmares. It did not end with the crack of light beneath the door, and it did not end with him screaming or crawling or desperate for something beyond.

It ended with the light. He had never known that it would end with the light.

His guilt, the _light_, had appeared in the green of Harry's eyes. Harry, the boy who had been too young to have ever done anything wrong.

"You're going to kill me? After I saved your life? _You owe me, Wormtail!_"

And Harry had seen it, the guilt, Peter's light. It flashed in his own watery eyes. The guilt had unearthed, the guilt had turned on him and the guilt was his end.

In the end, he was not Peter. He was only guilty.

**xxxxxxxxxxx**

_A/N: Written for the Revenge Competition by The Original Horcrux. The quote at the beginning does not belong to me. It belongs to the TV show Revenge. Peter's always been one of the most intriguing characters to me, personally, so this was fun to write. Thanks so much for reading, and remember... if you read and don't leave a review... you're guilty! ;) teehee. Only joking, but I'd love it if you did leave one for me! **  
**_


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